Pensacola Jury Got It Right

'Our decision was based on the evidence and the law. . . . Our personal beliefs concerning religion and the abortion issue did not in any way influence our decision in this case.''

Those are the words of jury foreman Frank Bocchino. He was one of 12 men and women who Wednesday found four people guilty of the Christmas Day bombings of three abortion clinics in Pensacola.

The jury convicted the two men, who had admitted their role, on seven charges relating to building and setting off of the bombs. The two women who helped them prepare the bombs were found guilty of conspiracy. The two men face a maximum of 65 years in prison. The women face up to five years in prison.

The verdict was just. The defendants claimed that they were temporarily insane at the time of the bombings. Their excuse was that God had told them to stop the killing of unborn children, and so they bombed the clinics. The jurors rightly decided that, as foreman Bocchino said, the issue in this case wasn't abortion or Christianity. The issue was bombing. And bombing is illegal.

This is a nation of laws. Those who break those laws must accept the penalties. Political issues -- even those as heated as abortion -- are decided by debate in public forums and legislative chambers. They aren't decided by acts of violence in the streets. And whatever the motivation for the Pensacola bombings, the bombings were acts of terrorism.

Fortunately no one was injured on Christmas Day, but that was just by chance. A passer-by, a janitor working after hours in one of the buildings, even police and firefighters on the scene later were potential victims. Had someone been killed, the bombings would have been murders.

The Pensacola bombings are not an isolated act of violence in the abortion debate. Federal officials say there have been 30 instances of bombings and arson at abortion clinics since 1982. These terrorists have hit clinics from Dover, Del., to Webster, Texas. Last May gunmen shot 42 bullets at two unoccupied clinics in Fort Lauderdale. In December a Seattle judge sentenced a man to 20 years in prison for setting four fires at abortion clinics in that city.

So when the Pensacola jury rejected the defense argument that these people should go free as an expression of the jury's own opposition to abortion, it made an important distinction: Religious beliefs or any other philosophical positions are not an excuse for such illegal acts.

Abortion is one of the most emotional and controversial issues in this country. It is an issue that brings out strong feelings, and often feelings of anger. But it is an issue that must be decided in public debate, not by public violence. And that is what the Pensacola jury has said.